The Van Alen Legacy (6 page)

Kingsley sat at the breakfast
table looking newly
energized,
and not just from the four shots of espresso in his
café con
leche
. He drank coffee like some vampires drank blood. “We’ve been thinking
like humans,” he sighed.
“Looking for suspects, interrogating witnesses.
These are
Croatan
we are up against. And they took the time to manipulate a memory that led us
everywhere but here.”

“It means she’s here.
In
Rio.
I get it.” Mimi nodded. ‘They sent us as far away as possible.”

“She’s probably right under
our nose,” Kingsley said.
“In one of the most populous cities in the
world.”

“Ten million people,” Mimi
said. ‘
that’s
a lot.” Her heart began to sink just thinking about how many more
dreams they would have to read, how many endless nights they would have to spend chasing shadows
in the dark.

She watched Kingsley walk away
from the table and over to the buffet, where the hotel had laid out a full breakfast: platters of
cheese buns and salted biscuits; freshly cut papayas, mangoes, and watermelons.
Bowls of
avocado cream.
Chafing dishes filled with slices of honey ham and crispy bacon.

He picked up a watermelon
wedge and took a bite, standing in front of the full-length windows that had a panoramic view of
the city. Mimi followed his gaze out to the clustered hillsides. The favelas were as crowded and
structurally ingenious as ant farms, precariously towering over the cliffs, a Byzantine maze of
ghettos housing Rio’s urban poor.

“Amazing, aren’t they? A city
within a city, really,” Mimi said. “It’s a wonder they all don’t come crashing down during flood
season.”

Kingsley put down the melon
rind.
‘The shanty towns . . . of course.
The Silver Bloods have always been drawn to
chaos and disorder. That’s where we’ll start.”

“Are you serious?” Mimi
groaned. “No one goes there unless they have to.”

The Visitor was annoyed. Bliss
felt his irritation like a blister. It was afternoon, as far as she could tell. The days slipped
by one after the other so easily that it was hard to figure out what time it was, but Bliss tried
to keep track as best she could. When he was quiet, it was night, and when she could sense his
awareness, it was day.

Usually she would get a
glimpse of the outside world when he woke up. Like yesterday morning, with the white shutters.
Then the blinds would shut again. Only when he let his guard down was Bliss able to get a quick
image of the outside world.

Like now, for the Visitor had
been taken by surprise.

One minute they were striding
through the house, and the next they were smack in the middle of a bunch of animals: grotesque
and pitiful.
Ugly.

What was this? What was she
looking at? Then she realized she was seeing the world through his eyes. Only when she pushed
herself a little harder did she see that they were just among an ordinary group of people. A lady
wearing a beige suit and sunglasses was ushering a family through the foyer. They looked like the
typical Hamptons crowd, Dad in a pastel alligator shirt with a white tennis sweater over his
shoulders, Mom in lavender seersucker, the kids, two boys, in miniature versions of Dad’s
outfit.

“Oh, hello . . . I’m sorry. We
were told the owners wouldn’t be here for the showing,” the lady in the business suit said with a
fake smile. “But since you’re here, do you know if your father’s contractor is still available to
complete the renovation?”

Then it all went black and the
image disappeared again, even though Bliss had been able to hear the question. Bobi Anne had been
in the midst of renovating before she died. The Hamptons house was supposed to be completed by
now, but when they returned from South America, Forsyth had ordered the construction ceased. The
entire back half of the house was missing. In its place was a big hole in the ground covered in
plaster dust, sawdust, and plastic.

The senator had returned to
New York only to discover that he had been cleaned out in the latest financial upheaval. Some
kind of
Ponzi
scheme, Bliss understood; a total scam. She wasn’t sure, except that
whatever it was, it had been enough to get Forsyth out of Conclave duties for a while. She
couldn’t quite tell what had happened, since it was around this time that the Visitor began to
take over completely; but she had a feeling they were bankrupt.

Forsyth was trying to get a
loan from the Committee to tide them over, but it would not be enough. His salary as a U.S.
senator was trifling. The
Llewellyns
, like many Blue Blood families, lived on
investment returns.

And apparently those
investments were gone.

Which was probably the
reason why there was a real estate agent at the house with her clients.
Forsyth was
selling the house. The thought didn’t make Bliss very sad. They didn’t spend so much time in the
Hamptons that she would miss it. She had been much more despondent when they had left their home
in Texas. She still missed that house sometimes: the way her two-level attic bedroom rested under
the leaves of an old willow tree, afternoons spent reading on the porch swing, the old antique
mirrors in the bathrooms that made everyone look a little bit mysterious and faerie.

The Visitor’s been gone
awhile, she thought, alone in the darkness. How long, she wasn’t certain. It was hard to judge
time when you weren’t in the physical world anymore.

Bliss wasn’t sure, but she
thought that there was something different about the solitude. That she might be truly alone this
time,
and not just cast out of her body while the Visitor did god knows what.
Usually she sensed his presence, but there had been times in the past when she was quite
convinced she was completely alone. That it was only her inside her body, and the other had
gone.

Could it be? Was she truly
alone? Bliss felt an excitement rising in her chest.

There was nothing. The Visitor
was gone, she could feel it. She was sure. She knew what she had to do. But she didn’t know if
she still could. Open the blinds. Open your eyes. Open them! Open! But where were
they?

Disembodied.
She
truly understood the meaning of the word. It was like floating without an anchor. She had to get
grounded again, to feel her way around until,
yes’there
it is, a crack of light,
maybe she just imagined it?, but if she could just force it open – there!, just a little more . .
.

Bliss opened her eyes slowly.
She’d done it! She looked around. It was amazing to be able to see the world on her terms, and
not how the Visitor saw it, through his hate-colored glasses. She was in the library.

A small cozy nook surrounded
by walls of books. Her stepmother’s decorator had insisted that all the “good homes” had one.
Bobi Anne read magazines. Forsyth liked to stay in his den with his large-screen television. The
library had become the sisters’ territory.

Bliss remembered how she and
Jordan would sit at the window seat, looking out at the pool and the ocean while they read. Bliss
saw an old summer reading stack on a shelf next to the Victorian
rolltop
desk.
The Brothers Karamazov.
The Grapes of Wrath.
Persuasion.

She thought she heard a noise.
Whether it was from inside or out, she did not know. Close the blinds. Close your eyes, she
thought frantically. Close them before he comes back.

She closed them.

Nothing.
She was
still alone.

She waited for a long time.
Then she opened her eyes again.
Nothing.
She really was alone. She had to take
advantage of this. Bliss had had a plan ever since she’d noticed his prolonged absences. She had
to do something more than just look around. Dare she?

Her body felt sluggish and
heavy.
So heavy.
This was going to be impossible. What if he came back?

What then? She had to try, she
told herself. She had to do something. She couldn’t just live like an invalid, in limbo, in
paralysis. If I can open my eyes, I can do something else. I’m still Bliss Llewellyn, aren’t
I?

I’ve won tennis tournaments
and run marathons. I can do this.

Move your hand. Move your
hand.

Can’t.
Too
heavy.
Where is my hand? I have a hand? What is a hand? There. I can feel my five fingers,
but they feel so far away, as if behind glass, or submerged underwater. She remembered seeing a
magician on the Today show who had attempted to live underwater for several days. How immobilized
and swollen he had looked.

She was no magician, but there
was no reason to remain trapped underneath her own fear either. Move it. Move.
Your.
Hand.
Oh God. It weighs three thousand pounds. I can’t do it. I can’t, I can’t. But
I have to.

Do it!

She remembered how hard it had
been to learn the four-base pyramid scorpion, one of the most difficult moves in cheerleading. It
required acute coordination and the skill of a trapeze artist. Bliss was the only cheerleader on
the team who could do it. She remembered how scared she had been the first time. If she didn’t
connect with the base’s hands on the way up, she would fall; if she missed the back spotter on
the extension, she would fall; if she didn’t balance correctly on her left foot, she would
fall.

But she would connect with the
base, hit her mark, stand with her right leg bent back above her head, and hold the pose until
she was thrown upward in a triple-somersault pop-flick to land on her feet.

Too bad Duchesne didn’t have a
squad. Bliss had tried to start one, but no one was interested. Snobs! They didn’t know what they
were missing.
The feeling of the night of a big game.
The anticipation of the
crowd.
The thrill of running out on the field, pom-poms bouncing, the roar from the
stands, the jealousy and the admiration.
On Fridays, cheerleaders were allowed to wear
their uniforms to class. It was akin to wearing a crown.
The scorpion.

She’d nailed it.

If I could do that, I can do
this, she told herself.

Move.
Your.
Hand!
She could feel her bangs in her face. The Visitor had not bothered with haircuts, or manicures
either. Bliss was annoyed. All that work to look cute gone down the drain. Her hair was wild and
untamed, rough to the touch. She had to do something about it.

There.
Urrrgh
!
Her hand jerked away, moving like a marionette, like a puppet on strings. But she’d done it. Her
hand awkwardly brushed her hair, moved it away from her eyes.

So.

I can do it.

I can take control of my body.
It’s going to be difficult and painful and slow, but I can do it. I’m not out of the game
yet.

Now all she had to do was
learn how to walk again.

For almost seventy years,
Christopher Anderson had served as faithful human Conduit to Lawrence Van Alen. He was the one
who had brought Schuyler to the hospital to have her arm properly looked at after they’d returned
from Corcovado with the news of his master’s passing. The spry, gracious gentleman had never
struck Schuyler as being particularly elderly, but since Lawrence’s death it looked as if age had
finally caught up with him. He was frail now and walked with a cane.

Anderson visited her that last
night at Oliver’s, where she had been staying since returning from South America. She hadn’t the
courage to go back to the brownstone on

. It hurt too much to know that there would be
no Lawrence puffing on his cigar in his study. Her grandfather’s Conduit advised her to leave the
country as soon as possible. He had read the transcript of the investigation. “You cannot take
chances. No one knows what will happen tomorrow. It is better that you go now and disappear
before they can renounce you as a traitor.”

“I told you,” Oliver said,
looking meaningfully at Schuyler.

“But where would we go?” she
asked.

“Everywhere.
Do
not stay anywhere for longer than seventy-two hours. The Venators are fast, but they will be
using the glom to find you, and it will slow them down a little. Wherever you go, make sure you
end up in Paris next August.”

“Why Paris?”
Schuyler asked.

“The full European Coven
converges every other year for a grand party and a congress,” Anderson said. “Lawrence had been
planning to attend the biannual meeting. You shall take his place instead. The countess will see
you. The Conclaves have been estranged ever since the Blue Bloods left the Old Country. She never
had any faith in Michael and the New York Coven. She will have even less faith now, when she
hears of Lawrence’s demise. She was one of his oldest friends.”

The countess had been a friend
to Cordelia as well, Schuyler realized later. She vaguely remembered the royal couple: their
stately home had made more of an impression. She hadn’t thought anything in particular of them
except that they had seemed gracious and extremely wealthy, just like everyone in Cordelia’s
circle. Now Schuyler understood they were special. The countess had been married to the late
Prince Henri, who would have been the King of France save the Revolution. Henri had been Regis of
the European Conclave. Upon the end of his cycle, his queen had assumed the title.